But on the eve of the trip, a complication. A 48-hour strike, courtesy of French air traffic control staff - a potential Gallic fly in our gazpacho.

Still, if there’s one thing I’m famed for it’s my relentless optimism. So all would be well and our flight would still fly, because that’s how relentless optimism works, right?

So it was that we rocked up at the airport at our usual time - exactly one hour and 40 minutes before take-off. Which is long enough to factor in any delays at security, but not so long that we get sucked into the usual pre-flight scenario of mooching around, not buying stuff we absolutely don’t need.

But, given that time was quite tight (this is a well-oiled machine now) it was with some joy that Georgie’s presence - she is the epitome of the stylish traveller - meant we got the nod and were ushered into the queue for the fast-track. Which wasn’t a queue because no one else was in there, meaning the staff manning it were kicking their heels, bored.

Enter Pete, also an epitome - this time, of the just-in-case traveller, the latest in a long line of just-in-case travellers, harking back to the days when an air traffic control strike could leave a person stranded in, say, Woolamaloonga or Terra Fuego or Outer Mongolia. Which latter location is the Barrett-Lee family go-to - as in “it really doesn’t matter if we forgot the Pampers/tea bags/toothpaste, it’s not as if we’re going to Outer Mongolia!”.

So, enter Pete, and also enter Pete’s Legendary Little Backpack - the latest in a long, unchanging line of Pete’s Legendary Little Backpacks, which have accompanied us absolutely everywhere. So ingrained are Pete’s Legendary Little Backpacks in the family psyche that the answer to almost any urgent-travel-need-related question has always been “Dad will have one in his backpack”.

Since the backpack (which IS little) usually travels through scanners unchallenged, I’ve never had much cause to wonder about its contents. As with Mary Poppins’ carpet bag, I just accept that it provides. But not so today. Today we get chapter and verse.

I’m through now, Georgie’s through now, Pete is through now as well, but in the vast empty hall that is fast track security, his backpack, the sole item remaining in the system, has been shunted away to the naughty corner.

The lady, a jolly soul who has clearly seen it all, takes the basket with the backpack and places it before us.

“Is this yours?” she asks Pete, who is already perplexed, since he removed both phone and Kindle, as per the rules. “Yes,” he says, “though I don’t think I left anything in there.”

She lifts a single eyebrow. “Perhaps not, but it’s a rather ‘busy’ bag, so I’m going to need to get everything out of it, OK?”

Though it obviously isn’t a question. And so she does.

It contains his car keys, three travel plugs, his essential command station (a sort of multi-function USB and plug adaptor thingy), his phone charger, his Kindle charger, associated charging leads, three extra charging leads, for as yet unknown charging situations, a collection of assorted batteries, a pair of pants, a second pair of pants, a T-shirt, a pair of socks, a second pair of socks, a denim jacket, a pair of flip-flops, a travel towel, a baseball cap, two pairs of earplugs, MY car keys (eh?), two identical pairs of sunglasses, a third, slightly different, pair of sunglasses, two pairs of reading glasses, a third, slightly different pair of reading glasses, 15 pairs of contact lenses (we are away for four days), a small plastic “dirty” bag, for stowage of soiled items, a spare plastic “clean” bag, for unexpected “liquids in hand luggage” needs, two blue ventolin inhalers, one brown ventolin inhaler, two blister plasters and a representative from pretty much every single legal drug group, including paracetamol, ibuprofen, antihistamines, anti-diarrhoeals, codeine, antacid, more antacid, even more antacid, rehydration salts and a selection of random antibiotics, which all spew from the depths like so much blister-pack confetti, plus - for me, this, and entirely without my knowledge, bless him - a self-adhesive heat pack, designed for pains in necks.

Then the last. A little tin, on which is written Grumpy Old Git’s Mints, which Georgie found for him in a farm shop last week. Uh-oh, I think.